Comic Book / Gene Dogs

It was the 90s

Gene Dogs is a Marvel Comics miniseries, written by John Freeman, drawn by Dave Taylor and published as part of the Marvel UK brand.

Team Omega were elite soldiers working for European counter-terrorism agency S.T.O.R.M. - until a creature attacked them during a mission in the Congo, leaving them near-dead and infected with an artificial virus. They were saved via experimental gene-matching with various animals, becoming the superhuman Gene Dogs.

The core cast are:

• Pacer (Carlos de Silva), their field leader, genetically matched to an unspecified ferocious animal. The change has boosted his strength, stamina, tracking and combat skills.

• Kestrel (Annie Jones), who flies on razor-edged crystal wings and can fire crystal spikes from her wrists.

• Howitzer (Shaka), matched to a sea reptile, who’s superhumanly tough, with improved lung capacity and an extended lifespan. However, he needs powered armour to stop his body losing heat.

• Tyr (Marc Devlin), who’s genetically matched to some sort of dinosaur. He’s a superhumanly strong brawler who becomes more bestial in appearance as he gets angrier.

• Panther (Corinne Walton), an agile warrior with wrist-blades, matched to feline DNA. She’s also Tyr’s partner and - unknown to the team - a mole for their enemies in Mys-Tech.

• Cat (Emma Malone), the newest recruit, joins the team after Panther’s death. She has psychic powers, but it’s unclear whether she went through the same gene-matching process as the other team members.

The field team are supported by Doctor Samuel Merrick, the scientist who created the gene-matching device, and led by Eagle (Lars Dinkelbach) - who was a test subject for an earlier version of the process.

The initial miniseries sees them caught up in a feud between recurring Marvel UK villains Mys-Tech and the equally unpleasant Otomocorp.

Otomocorp want to steal Mys-Tech’s gene scanner technology - which could be deployed as an orbital weapon. Mys-Tech are well aware of their rivals’ plan, but seem to be playing a game of their own. Neither side cares if anyone else gets hurt or killed.

As if all of that wasn’t bad enough, Mys-Tech have just defrosted a cryogenically frozen supervillain with a vendetta against S.T.O.R.M. - and he’s got some unexpected new powers to play with.

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Tropes included in Gene Dogs:

• Aliens in Cardiff:
  • Superhumans fighting in Liverpool.
  • A secret base buried under North Wales.
• All There in the Manual: Panther’s surname is only confirmed in the Marvel Atlas, years after the original series ended. Additionally, trading cards supplied with the first issue fill in some gaps in the characters’ backgrounds.
  • Kestrel is a streetwise teenager who grew up in one of the most deprived parts of Manchester.
  • Tyr was career military and served around the world before joining S.T.O.R.M.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Hurricane raids S.T.O.R.M. Base while the Gene Dogs are out on a mission, catching Eagle and Dr Merrick unprotected.
• Ambiguous Robots: Harvester and Automaton. Sternwood comments that he never thought Harvester was truly alive, but it seemed to have some organic components - and had enough of a mind for Hurricane’s mind control to command it. Automaton is an uploaded mind in an artificial body, but its self repair also seems to absorb “symbiote gene-matter” from Harvester’s remains for “organ reconstruction”.
• Animal-Themed Superbeing: The Gene Dogs are a team of heroes who’ve been genetically enhanced using animal DNA. In most cases the exact animal isn’t stated, but Tyr is based on some sort of dinosaur, Panther and her replacement Cat are both feline and Kestrel is certainly bird-themed. Downplayed with Howitzer (sea reptile DNA) and Pacer (some sort of ferocious carnivore), who don’t keep an overt animal theme.
• Bad Boss:
  • Otomo. He’s generally horrible to his Q7 Strikeforce minions - and tries to blow up Otomocorp’s Siberian base while they’re still inside.
  • Mys-Tech, as usual. Although this time it’s limited to betraying Hurricane to Otomocorp, as part of Crowe’s larger plan.
• Beast Man: In the field, Tyr’s quite reptilian, with mottled skin, fangs, talons and spikes along his back and arms. He gets more bestial as he gets angrier. When calmer and not on a mission, he still has red eyes and a very distinctive voice - and his skin tone’s unusually orange - but he’s otherwise human.
• Bio-Augmentation: The main source of the Dogs’ superpowers, as they’re enhanced with DNA from various animals. Hurricane has this as well, but in his case it’s stacked with his pre-existing powers.
• Blessed with Suck:
  • The gene matching process saved the Dogs’ lives, but it’s also unstable. Without regular treatment from Dr Merrick, they’ll lose their powers and possibly lose their minds.
  • Shaka was gene matched with a reptile and can no longer maintain his body temperature without the Howitzer armour. He doesn’t have to wear it at all times, but we don’t see him outdoors without it.
• Brain Uploading: The Q7 Strikeforce assume that Automaton is simply a combat robot and try to reprogram it as a new recruit, not realising it’s actually an uploaded human.
• Calling Your Attacks: Automaton, at least some of the time. It announces its self-repair activities as well.
• Captain Ethnic: Q7 Strikeforce member Banzai. He’s Asian (presumably Japanese). He wears a hachimaki-style headband with a circle ‘sun’ symbol on it. He fights with two katanas. He has ‘ninja’ style camouflage powers that allow him to vanish from sight. He’s vocally concerned about personal honour and losing face. And then there’s that name...
• Continuity Nod:
  • Nakasoni’s R&D department have relocated to Liverpool after the damage to their London buildings in Digitek.
  • S.T.O.R.M. Base is so secret that the RCX isn’t aware of it.
  • Q7 are a little surprised to be confronted by the Gene Dogs - they were half-expecting established Marvel superheroes Excalibur, though.
  • Automaton was retrieved from another place and time by Mys-Tech’s Warheads. Otomo himself is a former Warhead, and much of his futuristic technology was stolen from them.
  • The Genetix suspect the lizard-thing in the London sewers is one of Doctor Mullarkey’s creations. Mullarkey is a recurring villain in Motormouth & Killpower and other Marvel UK titles.
• Corporate Warfare: Otomocorp vs. Mys-Tech
• Cyborg: After his gene-mapping enhancements went awry, Eagle was cybernetically enhanced. It’s implied that this keeps him alive, but he’s no longer capable of acting as a field agent.
• Elaborate Underground Base: S.T.O.R.M. Base, two miles below North Wales.
• Enemy Civil War: Otomo was one of Mys-Tech’s Warhead mercenaries - his own unscrupulous company, Otomocorp, is built on three years of stolen secrets from those days. Mys-Tech’s board is not at all happy about this.
• Enemy Mine: Otomo helps the Gene Dogs and Q7 Strikeforce escape, and they’re then forced to ally against Hurricane. Neither group seems too happy about it. And Otomo betrays both at the first opportunity.
• Evil, Inc.: Two of them. As well as recurring Marvel UK villains Mys-Tech, their rivals in Otomocorp are just as bad.
• Feed It with Fire: Sternwood torments the captured Hurricane with an energy baton. As he discovered when a supercharged Hurricane breaks free and attacks him, this is a really bad idea.
• Feed the Mole: The entire plot of the miniseries (including Panther’s death) is driven by this. Mys-Tech want Otomocorp to steal the gene scanner, so they’re leaking information via Suyin.
• Feeling Their Age: In the first battle, Panther thinks to herself that she’s getting “too old for this”. Doubles as foreshadowing, as Banzai kills her a couple of pages later.
• Flawed Prototype:
  • Lars went through the same gene matching process a couple of years before the Gene Dogs. It didn’t work out so well.
  • Hurricane was another gene matching experiment, and was believed dead when it failed.
• Foreshadowing: Panther comments that she’s getting too old for this. Doctor Merrick worries about whether she’s ready for a field test. And then Banzai kills her.
• Fun with Acronyms: Special Taskforce Omega Response Mandate (S.T.O.R.M.)
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Hurricane, once’s he’s fully powered up.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Crowe, Wychwood and Mys-Tech. While they’re often the Big Bad for Marvel UK stories, this time they step back and Hurricane and Otomo compete for that role.
• I Believe I Can Fly: Kestrel’s powers and crystal wings allow her to fly. Hurricane flies as well, via his weather manipulation powers.
• Informed Ability: Dialogue in the Team Omega flashback mentions that Tyr’s the demolitions expert and Kestrel’s great with computers, but we never see them use those skills again.
• Informed Flaw:
  • Shaka’s reptilian gene-matching means that he loses heat and can’t maintain his body temperature without the Howitzer armor. The battle against Otomocorp and Hurricane takes the Gene Dogs to frozen Siberia, where they’re captured and he’s stripped of the armor. But they’re warm indoors, he quickly gets the armor back and it’s not mentioned at all.
  • Dr Merrick comments that they can’t eliminate the added ferocity of Pacer’s gene match (and Eagle queries why they’d want to) - but Pacer’s generally a competent, level-headed leader in the field. It’s Tyr who’s the team’s hot-headed berserker.
• Internal Reveal: In Siberia, immediately before the attack on Otomo’s base, Cat finally tells the Dogs that Panther was a traitor. Tyr doesn’t believe her.
• In the Back: Banzai kills Panther by stabbing her in the back.
• It's Personal:
  • Hurricane wants revenge against Merrick and S.T.O.R.M. for experimenting on him.
  • Tyr wants revenge on Banzai for killing Panther
  • Crowe is very unhappy with Otomo’s defection - and theft - from Mys-Tech
• Karmic Butt-Monkey: It’s hard to feel sorry for Q7’s leader Sternwood when the prisoner he’s been torturing breaks free and beats him up. Or when he escapes Hurricane’s mind-control only to be promptly knocked out in one hit.
• Kill Sat: The weaponised gene scanner falls into this category. Installed on a space station it can mutate and kill entire cities on the planet below. Or, at least, that’s what Mys-Tech claim.
• Let's You and Him Fight:
  • Mys-Tech manage to divert the Gene Dogs into fighting the Genetix, a team of teenagers who’ve recently escaped from Mys-Tech. And then send Hurricane to raid the Dogs’ base while they’re busy elsewhere.
  • A villainous example - once Hurricane’s stolen the gene scanner, Crowe arranges for him to be ambushed by the Q7 Strikeforce.
• Long-Lived: A side-effect of Howitzer’s gene-matching.
• Love-Interest Traitor: Tyr was in a relationship with Panther, unaware that she was The Mole. When he eventually discovered this, after her death, he didn’t take it well.
• Mind Control: Hurricane, in addition to his weather control powers. An unexpected bonus from the ‘soldier ant’ gene matching.
• Mission Control: Lars and Dr Merrick. At least initially, before Hurricane devastates their base.
• Neural Implanting: The Gene Dogs’ biological enhancements are supported by “Gene-Chips” implanted into their brains.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Tyr somehow defeated the creature that attacked Team Omega in the Congo.
• Only One Name: Shaka. Only one name is mentioned in the comic, in the Marvel handbooks and on the trading cards
• Playing with Fire: Firestrike, part of Q7 Strikeforce, has this power.
• Powered Armor: Shaka’s Howitzer armor.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Q7 Strikeforce have elements of this, especially when the main plot denotes them to mind-controlled minions.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Discussed. Wychwood considers this an outright victory for Mys-Tech - Otomocorp have lost their space station and Siberian base, and will take a long time to recover. Crowe is less positive and sees it as a purely pyrrhic victory; Otomo himself is still alive, their mole Panther is dead and Hurricane has been captured.
• Rage Against the Mentor: When Lars arrives to rescue the team from Siberia, Tyr immediately punches him in the face and calls him out for concealing Panther’s betrayal from the team.
• Razor-Sharp Hand: When he’s not wearing the Howitzer heavy armor, Shaka’s martial arts are apparently good enough to break katanas with his bare hands.
• Razor Wings: Kestrel’s bladed crystal wings.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Hurricane, after he’s re-powered but before he escalates all the way to Glowing Eyes of Doom. Arguably Tyr as well - he’s not a villain, but he’s the scary hero with battle rage.
• Self-Destruct Mechanism: Triggered by Otomo as soon as he teleports out of the Siberian base.
• Shoulder Cannon: Shaka’s Howitzer armor has these.
• Somebody Set Us Up The Bomb: That gene scanner that Otomocorp stole from Mys-Tech and deployed to their space station? The one that kickstarted the whole plot? Mys-Tech had been feeding the mole and it’s actually a very powerful bomb. Ouch.
• Spanner in the Works: The Gene Dogs, by initially foiling the Q7 Strikeforce. Mys-Tech’s plan relies on Otomocorp successfully stealing the gene scanner from Mys-Tech, without superheroes thwarting them.
• Spike Shooter: Kestrel fires crystal darts from wrist-mounted launchers. It’s unclear whether this is part of her power, a built-in weapon in her uniform or a combination of both.
• Spoiler Cover: The first issue’s cover introduced the team. But Panther - who dies in the first issue - is missing, with her replacement Cat very prominent.
• Steven Ulysses Perhero: Marc was already nicknamed Tyr in the Team Omega days, before he was gene matched to the dinosaur. Then again, Eagle did specifically request that match for him…
• Stripperific: Q7’s Firestrike wears a very skimpy costume.
• Superhero Packing Heat: Pacer carries a very big gun.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Panther is an agile woman with enhanced senses. Cat is an agile woman with psychic powers. Acknowledged in-universe by Tyr, who sees her as an unwanted replacement for Panther.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Captain Britain villain Hurricane returns as one of the team’s adversaries.
  • The Gene Dogs themselves return, many years later, for a one panel cameo alongside other Marvel UK heroes, in the grand battle at the end of the Revolutionary War miniseries.
• The Mole: Two of them. It ends badly for both - and in both cases, the organisation they’re infiltrating already knows about them.
  • Panther is Mys-Tech’s mole within S.T.O.R.M., although she’s killed in battle in the first issue before this is revealed (and there’s no hint of it in her thought bubbles). Mission control knew she was a mole, but not whether she was working alone (so hadn’t told the rest of the team). Her replacement’s first job is to check the loyalty of the survivors.
  • Suyin is Otomocorp’s mole in Mys-Tech. Crowe disposes of him when he’s no longer required.
• Villainous Rescue: Tanuta teleports everyone - not just the Q7 Strikeforce - out of the Siberian base before Otomo blows it up. Q7 are gone by the time the Dogs recover, and Cat, Pacer and Howitzer have different opinions as to whether or not they were intentionally saved.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Panther is killed in the first issue.
• We Used to Be Friends: Implied with Tanuta and Shaka, although she doesn’t immediately recognise him in the Howitzer armor.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • It’s revealed that Merrick used to work for Otomo, but this is never followed up on.
  • More significantly, we never find out exactly what the creature that attacked Team Omega in the Congo was. Although Tyr thinks the lizard-thing they fight under London looks very familiar, suggesting that they might be related somehow.
  • Shaka and Tanuta’s shared past is never explained.

• Winged Humanoid: Kestrel. She can grow, repair and discard her crystal wings, although she can’t manifest or repair them instantly.
• Wolverine Claws: Panther’s costume includes wrist-mounted blades.
• Wound That Will Not Heal: Team Omega’s injuries from the creature they fought in the Congo, which led to their emergency GMD treatment and the creation of the Gene Dogs.